Oregon Expands Sudden Oak Death Quarantine For Coastal Areas

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Oregon has done a good job of keeping the tree-killing disease sudden oak death from exploding in the wild as it has in California. But any chance of eradicating the disease from the Southern Oregon coast, where it was first found in 2001, will require an expansion of the Curry County quarantine previously in place. Following public hearings held late last year, the Oregon Department of Agriculture is increasing the sudden oak death quarantine from some 26 square miles to about 162 square miles based on additional detections of Phytophthora ramorum, the fungus that causes the disease. The site, northeast of Brookings, remains the only place in Oregon where P. ramorum has been found in the natural environment.

"Our eradication efforts have worked very well at keeping sudden oak death from spreading to the rest of the state, but they haven't eliminated the disease," says Dan Hilburn, administrator of ODA's Plant Division. "P. ramorum has spread a little bit each year since we first discovered the disease nearly seven years ago, and we are continuing the eradication."

The fungus-caused disease has left a trail of dead trees in central and northern California ever since it was first detected in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1990s. P. ramorum invades susceptible trees through the bark, killing the entire tree or portions of the tree.

Certain species of oak commonly found in southwest Oregon, including tanoak and black oak, are very susceptible. But P. ramorum also infects rhododendron, huckleberry, madrone, myrtle, and several other shrubs.

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http://www.currycountyreporter.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=3280